As you can see both a rather tetchy Rotheram and a somewhat more relaxed Anderson make their feelings clear on the subject of Wirral Council’s continued use of Kingdom Security. However it remains in the hands of Wirral councillors and specifically the ruling Labour administration to address what is beginning to look more and more like a punitive tax on the poor and vulnerable and very little to do with litter enforcement or environmental concerns.

Our thanks to ‘Liverpool Litter Plod‘ for taking it to the streets over the ongoing Kingdom Security debacle and forthrightly putting his concerns to Wirral Councillor and Merseytravel Committee member Cllr Steve ‘Foulkesy’ Foulkes about how Kingdom operate and particularly on Merseytravel property on behalf of Wirral Council .

Foulkesy replies with the classic line : “I’ve never defended poor behaviour in my life …”

Are you sure about that Foulkesy? As far as we’re concerned your entire political career has been characterised by ‘poor behaviour’. Foulkesy may not like ‘LiverpoolLitter Plod’s ‘style of engagement’ but it’s becoming increasingly clear that for complacent local politicians to sit up and take notice you sometimes have to take it to the streets and use the language of the streets – otherwise they will dictate the rules of engagement and they will control the course of events.

Never mind Elaine having to put up with you for weeks whilst you ingratiate yourself with party members – we’ve had to put up with you for years!

The latest news to arrive from the rounds of Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meetings is bad news for those who expressed the view – more in hope than expectation – that Cllr Steve ‘Foulkesy’ Foulkes was next for the Labour CLP selection guillotine.

Alas, it was not to be, as in an astonishing lack of judgement we discover that Claughton and Noctorum CLP thought Foulkesy should be their representative at the local elections in May 2019.

However it must be said that Foulkesy is showing the way to go if you currently want to remain a Labour councillor – you must pledge your allegiance to Jeremy Corbyn, even if you have to fake it and it is a slap in the face of your long time political benefactor Frank Field,who has helped get Foulkesy out of many a political scrape and helped (with others) to cover up a multitude of misdemeanours on his behalf.

To which we can only reply – Oh do give over you’ve also got Cllr George Davies as a ward councillor . So obviously you don’t have a problem with alleged racism (or dishonesty).

What’s more we don’t think that being associated with allegations of racism, being utterly repellent whether it takes place at home or abroad, is the main reasons why Foulkesy needs to f-f-f-f…fade away.

For all the amnesiacs out there (and particularly in Claughton and Noctorum CLP) let us remind you of Foulkesy’s official rap sheet ( an unofficial rap sheet would probably bow our collective minds ).

Let’s remember – this was the man who was ousted in a vote of no confidence in 2012 after it discovered that the Council he was the leader of – and by the way how did that happen? – was a basket case overrun by bullying , dishonesty and incompetence.

Unbelievably ,even after all the ‘lessons have been learned’ PR BS , worse was to follow as we reported in our WIRRALGATE! – Foulkesy the Fibber story where it was subsequently proven that Foulkesy was a smear campaign organiser and a serial liar – as we said at the time :

Is it only us at Leaky Towers who find the term ‘economical with the truth’ much more offensive than ‘liar’. What should we do call Foulkesy a ‘fibber’ ? – sorry we’re in no mood for polite and dare we say evasive euphemisms – Foulkesy is a LIAR – and a well practised if not very accomplished one at that . Even when confronted with incontrovertible evidence he persists with the lies…

But then we have reason to believe that Foulkesy has a long and inglorious history of being dishonest. Could this be the same man who prior to being a councillor was caught fare dodging on Merseyrail and yet is now one of Wirral Council’s (well remunerated) representatives at Merseytravel meetings ?

Ultimately , why should we care ? Mainly because we do – but we also concede that we get the politicians we deserve or at least what Claughton and Noctorum deserve. However we still believe that the rest of Wirral deserve so much better…

For Foulkesy waiting for the CLP nomination results must’ve been like waiting for a ticket collector on Merseyrail…

SPOILER ALERT for those attending tonight’s Wirral South Constituency Labour Party (CLP) meeting

We have received a copy of an Emergency Motion about Cammell Laird shipyard which we fully endorse and would like to share especially as we are currently joining the dots on a current investigation involving the shipyard.

You’d think that the “Turning the tide on Casualisation” campaign would be right up neighbouring MP Frank Field’s street wouldn’t you? And indeed as part of Field’s relentless media presence he has obviously made sure that Cammell Laird gets a mention. A recent press release can be found on his blog here

Birkenhead’s MP Frank Field is battling to safeguard jobs at Cammell Laird by supporting the yard’s bids for two major shipbuilding orders – one from the Ministry of Defence and the other from Merseytravel…

Frank comments: ‘In the shipbuilding industry, the sure-fire way of being able to safeguard jobs is to keep bidding for and winning major orders. Cammell Laird is a world leader in shipbuilding and I am determined to ensure it has a fighting chance of securing these two orders. The yard’s longstanding technical credibility and expertise, as well as its unique capabilities of driving innovation and upskilling the workforce, go hand in hand with its vital role in supporting small and medium sized businesses across our region.’

However whilst securing shipbuilding orders are indeed one way of securing jobs at Cammell Laird you will note that the main thrust of the Unions campaign is the possible use of non-Unionised(?), cheaper labour accessed via an agency thereby undermining local workers rights ,pay and conditions and the potential cause of future redundancies. Once again you would think this would be meat and potatoes for Field. We’d certainly expect him to be raising questions about who’s behind this mysterious agency – we certainly have and the information we’ve has opened up some interesting lines of enquiry.

Perhaps it could be both impolitic and impolite for Field to mention such matters when Cammell Laird is a major contributor (along with Wirral Council taxpayers) to Frank Field’s pet project ‘Feeding Birkenhead’ ?

Meanwhile we encourage our readers to support this campaign and sign the petition:

All you trainspotters out there will be aware there’s a ‘mock up’ of the new type of train that is coming to Merseyside that can be seen at Pacific Road tramsheds.
It is actually made of wood and rumoured to have cost a cool £1 million. It’s not known whether Merseytravel considered consulting the travelling public of Merseyside whether would rather have their over-inflated fares spent on securing guards on trains or on an oversized boy’s toy.

Further rumours that Merseytravel are planning to rustle up interest in the exhibit by hosting a special Halloween ‘ghost train horrorshow’ featuring an imposing life size figure of Wirral Council’s Lead Investment Manager Martin Liptrot standing on the train with his arms folded and giving his best death stare are as yet unconfirmed.

We also noticed that the destination on the front of the train was West Kirby which is appropriate for Liptrot and his friend,neighbour,comrade and benefactor , Wirral Council ‘leader’ Cllr Phil ‘Power Boy Pip’ Davies . Both are season ticket holders on the West Kirby gravy train who try to not look out of the window as they pass through Birkenhead North!

Talking of tramsheds we note that there has been resurrection of the ideas of streetcars in Birkenhead which were first mooted five years ago when the fantasy that was Wirral Waters was first floated. Now that that fantasy has sunk to the bottom of the Mersey along with Stella Shiu ,her prize winning marrows and the International Trade Centre and rebranded as Wirral Waters One, the idea of transportation by streetcar been resurrected by Green councillor Pat Cleary in an upcoming Wirral Council Notice of Motion to be debated next week titled , ‘Sustainable Transport For Wirral Waters ‘. Dare we suggest the title should have been ‘ A Streetcar Named Desire To Have Some Coordinated Infrastructure Planning Between Partner Agencies For Once’?…

The poppies, the wristbands……. all he needs is the CND logo tattooed on his forehead. And no right thinking person would think he means any of it. Not for a single second.

Whilst we all gaze adoringly at our favourite brickie gazing into the middle distance below are the details of Metro Mayor Steve ‘the Brickie’ Rotheram’s tour of the Liverpool City Region as it reaches Wirral’s shores.

He was a brickie by the way, just in case you missed that in his lowest common denominator electioneering. “I’m a brickie. I’m one of you” No, you’re not you’re a career politician , and a particularly phoney one at that.

Needless to say anyone residing at Leaky Towers will be screened out during the application but if one of us was there one question we’d like to ask him is about the ongoing Merseyrail dispute.

The rather wonderful Confidentials website has an excellent analysis of the situation which you can read here : Mayors to blame

Whilst Liverpool Walton MP Dan Carden highlighted the issue in the House of Commons last week and blamed the government decision to cut the city region’s train’s budget by millions of pounds the Rail Minister Paul Maynard pointed a finger of blame at the city region’s Labour decision makers.

He told Carden: “As Labour members will know, they have a multiplicity of local Labour politicians to discuss this matter with, including the chair of Merseytravel (Cllr Liam Robinson), the elected city Mayor in Liverpool (Joe Anderson) and the elected city region Mayor (Carden’s predecessor Steve Rotherham), all of whom have stood behind this decision. If we truly believe in devolving transport powers, we have to respect the decisions that are taken.”

It emerged during the debate that the Dutch state-owned co-operator of Merseyrail, Abellio, puts guards on its trains in Holland, but proposes to run a service without them on its Mersey franchise.

Those local Labour politicians from Wirral who influence decision making on this matter include Cllr Jerry Williams , Cllr Ron Abbey and ( God help us) Cllr Steve Foulkes – so let’s face it we’re doomed . Therefore we implore the people of Wirral – if you care about employment rights and your personal safety sign those petitions demanding that guards remain on Merseyrail trains . If that doesn’t work – remember there are local elections on Wirral next year ,and putting party politics aside, it would be good to remember exactly who trashed over local rail travellers.